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Mommy’s Diary 35 – Making a Tradition

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Have you seen the movie, “Dan in Real Life“? I like that movie. I hope my family will look like that in 30 years. That movie portrayed the family being so tight, loving and full of traditions. I hope to develop traditions like making family pancake breakfasts for lazy Saturday mornings and making cookie houses at Christmas time. Super sentimental I know, but hey I can dream!

But, in an effort to get the ball rolling on my family tradition building, I started making a cookie house (not gingerbread house since I don’t really like gingerbread cookies) last year and have carried this into the present. It’s so much fun! Kiko is now 8 months old so she could not help with the decoration of the house, but she helped eat a piece of cookie that I specially shaped like a pig for her. She stared at it and bit it, stared at it and bit it…It was a little hard for her little front teeth but in the end she seems to have been pleased.

I’m looking forward to this time next year, when she can sit next to me and help me both decorate and eat the cookie house!

Mommy’s Diary 34 – Child Proofed Christmas Decoration

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Unfortunately, in our household, we are not putting up  a Christmas tree this year. This is mainly because my baby started to move around and chew on everything. I can’t imagine what the poor Christmas tree will look like after being destroyed by Kiko. Instead, I came up with a child proofed Christmas decoration which Kiko can enjoy but not touch and so is totally stress free for me. She loves mobiles in her crib, so I bought a couple of decoration balls and a Christmas tree shaped card and hung them from the ceiling with a string. When a wind blows or the ceiling fan is on, they move around and Kiko is thrilled. They also look pretty when light reflects off of them. 

I also DIYed this wall shelf so some things are out of the baby’s reach. Kiko started to touch my cell phone, battery charger etc. so whatever I don’t want her to touch, I put up on this wall shelf. I bought a piece of wood, white spray paint, nails and L-shaped clasps from Home Depot. The cost was less than 800 yen. 

Mommy’s Diary 33 Q&A

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Today I’m answering the question one reader asked. Here is her question:

this may be out of topic . it is actually. but i wonder how do you manage your time? with chores, work and sewing. plus with kiko’s present. i’ve been having a hard time squeezing in time for sewing. do you sew when she naps or do you sew while she plays by herself? when i have the time to do anything related to sewing i’ll be either too tired or there are just so many housework that needs to be done, btw i have a 10mo son and he’s pretty handful. any advice?

Hi! Thank you so much for your comment on my blog.

I thought about your question, and I came up with the following tips for how I manage my time. I don’t do everything perfectly, but I do
think I get a lot of things in a day. So here are some tips on how to manage time with a little one:)

1) Kiko is on a set schedule
This helped me a LOT. I don’t know how I could do anyything without Kiko being on a set schedule. She has a set sleeping and eating and
playing schedule for everyday. Both Kiko and I know what to expect during the day. The general schedule is as follows:

6:00 Everyone gets up
6:30: Kiko breakfast (solids)
6:30 – 8:00 Play time (watches daddy and mommy eat, play in her walker, tummy time)
8:00 Kiko gets a bottle
8:30-11:00 Morning nap (here, even if she get up earlier than 11am, I don’t go pick her up. I let her hang out and entertain herself)
11:30 Lunch (solids)
11:30 – 1:30 play time and she gets a bottle at the end
1:30-3:00 Afternoon nap
3:00-5:30 Play time and she gets another bottle here between 3 and 3:30
5:30 Dinner (solids)
6:00 Bath time with mommy, bedtime routine (bottle, brush her teeth, devotional time, read books, sing)
7:00 Kiko goes to bed

The schedule helps everyone. Both Kiko and I know what to expect next. It helps my mom know what to expect when she babysits. It was a pain to set the schedule at first, but over time, she learned to deal with it. She sleeps through the night from 7pm to 6am, which is really
great. My sewing time is usually at night from 8pm after I finish dinner to whenever I go to bed.

2) I have a supportive husband. I’m lucky because Andy is really good with Kiko. If I were to die tomorrow, I can die in peace (I’d rather
avoid dying tomorrow though) because he is perfectly capable of taking care of our baby on his own. Also he cooks everyone’s breakfast and
dinner on weekdays. I resisted this at first, because not cooking dinner for family made me feel like a crappy wife, but he convinced me
otherwise, and I think I got over my feelings of guilt. I couldn’t possibly do what I do without him, if I tried, I would burn out quick.
He also helps me with shipping my sold items, and I’m completely dependent upon him in terms of the shops accounting. Over time, I’ve
learned to delegate work and decided not to micro manage.

3) Practice makes everything perfect. When I first started sewing, it took me 3 days to finish one dress. Over time, as I made more and
more, the time it took to make one garment became less and less. Now I can whip up a simple sundress within two hours. I also do my sewing conveyor belt style. This way I can work on several projects at once. I cut everything at the same time, sew and iron everything at the same time. At the end of the process, I have 2-3 items sewn up and ready to put out for the shop. This system saves more time than making one piece at a time.

4) In terms of house chores, I take care of most of them in the morning. Between the time I get up in the morning at 6am to I go to
work at 8am, I sweep the floor, do laundry (I do it everyday when it is sunny out) etcetera. When the chores start to accumulate and wait
to do them all on weekends, I get discouraged and this puts a real damper on my productivity.

Every person and family are different so I guess, to sum up, I would say work out a schedule and work it for as much as you can. Don’t
underestimate what you can do in a short time and don’t overestimate what you think you can do over a longer period of time. I hope this
helps. Please let me know if you have any other questions!